Burning question: Who will light Olympic cauldron?

By Stephen Wilson
Associated Press

Published: Sunday, Aug. 2 2015 3:18 p.m. MDT

FILE - This is a Friday, July 19, 1996 file photo of Muhammad Ali, watched by U.S. swimmer Janet Evans, as lights the Olympic flame during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games opening ceremony in Atlanta. Who will or who should light the cauldron for the London Games? With six months to go until the opening ceremony, British bookmakers are taking floods of bets on the issue, while fans, athletes, media and the public at large are speculating on who will get the honor. Five-time rowing gold medalist Steve Redgrave is the big favorite with the bookies. (Michael Probst, Associated Press)

LONDON — It's the burning question of the London Olympics.

Who will — or should — light the cauldron for the 2012 Games?

With six months to go until the opening ceremony, British bookmakers are taking floods of bets on the issue, while fans, athletes, media and the public at large are speculating on who will get the honor.

Five-time rowing gold medalist Steve Redgrave is the big favorite with the bookies, with British Olympians Kelly Holmes, Daley Thompson and Tom Daley also in the mix. Football icon David Beckham, 4-minute miler Roger Bannister, middle-distance great Sebastian Coe and even Queen Elizabeth II are among other names being mentioned.

The identity of the final torchbearer is always meant to be a closely guarded secret, so the uncertainty will go on right up until the flame is ignited on the evening of July 27.

FILE - This is a Saturday, June 26, 2004 file photo of Britain's five times Olympic rowing champion Steve Redgrave as lights the Olympic Flame on stage at the Olympic Torch concert held on the Mall, in London. The concert was held to commemorate the Olympic Flame as it passes through London on its way to Athens 2004. Who will or who should light the cauldron for the London Games? With six months to go until the opening ceremony, British bookmakers are taking floods of bets on the issue, while fans, athletes, media and the public at large are speculating on who will get the honor. Five-time rowing gold medalist Steve Redgrave is the big favorite with the bookies. (Richard Lewis, File, Associated Press)

Picture the scene:

The 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium is packed for the ceremony masterminded by Danny Boyle, Oscar-winning director of "Slumdog Millionaire." Billions of people around the world are watching on television.

Thousands of athletes from more than 200 countries have marched into the stadium. Queen Elizabeth II has declared the games open. The Olympic anthem has been played and the Olympic flag raised.

The Olympic torch, which has been taken by boat down the River Thames to the Olympic Park, is carried into the stadium by the last group of relay runners.

Finally, someone — who? — takes the torch and lights the cauldron that will burn for the next 17 days.

In a tradition that started with the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the transfer of the flame to the cauldron symbolizes the start of the games and often stands out as the defining moment of the opening ceremony.

"Depending on how they set it up and who it is in the end, it can be great," senior International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound of Canada said. "For London, it should be somebody who in his or her own way defines Britain and sporting traditions."

The flame will arrive in Britain from Greece on May 19, heralding the start of a 70-day, 8,000-mile relay across the U.K. that will culminate with the ceremony in London.

Coe, chairman of the 2012 organizing committee, said no decisions have yet been made about the lighting.

"It will be decided by, almost certainly our creative teams, and there'll be discussions but we're not anywhere near," he said Thursday. "I can tell you we haven't even begun to get to that granularity of detail."

Some lightings are more memorable than others.

"It's always a dramatic moment and yet most people don't remember who lit the cauldron in 2008," Olympic historian David Wallechinsky said. "They may remember Muhammad Ali, but often it's of minor significance in the long run."

As London approaches, it's worth a look back at some cauldron-lighting moments of previous games.

—Who can forget Ali, trembling from Parkinson's, holding the torch aloft in his right hand for several breathtaking seconds before lighting the flame for the 1996 Atlanta Games?

—Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo fired a flaming arrow high into the night sky to ignite the flame at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

—Cathy Freeman — a powerful symbol of Australia's Aboriginal people — did the honors at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Eleven nights later, she won the 400 meters, the only person to light the cauldron and win a gold medal at the same games.

—Members of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic hockey team lit the flame together at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

—Another Olympic great, nine-time long-distance running gold medalist Paavo Nurmi of Finland, lit one of the two cauldrons in Helsinki in 1952.

Symbolism also has been an important element over the years.

In 1976, two teenagers, a boy and a girl, representing English- and French-speaking Canada, were chosen to light the flame for the Montreal Games.

The final torchbearer at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was Yoshinori Sakai, who was born on the day the atom bomb was dropped on his native Hiroshima in 1945.

The first woman to light the flame? Sprinter Norma Enriqueta Basilio de Sotelo at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

The youngest? Francois Cyril Grange, who was 7, when he joined French soccer great Michel Platini to ignite the cauldron at the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville.

More recently, Chinese gymnast Li Ning "ran" around the top portion of the stadium while suspended by wires before lighting the flame in Beijing four years ago.

At the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, two separate lightings were held — one at the indoor opening ceremony and a second outdoors. Wayne Gretzky, Steve Nash, Nancy Greene and Catriona Le May Doan were torch bearers.

And when the Olympics were held in London in 1948?

While many had expected that miler Sydney Wooderson or even the young Prince Phillip would be the final torchbearer, it was a little-known 22-year-old medical student named John Mark who carried the flame.

"He was chosen to represent youth and vitality because of his good looks and had practiced for weeks running with his right arm held vertical," said Janie Hampton, author of "The Austerity Olympics — When the Games to London in 1948."

Now, 64 years later, Redgrave is the overwhelming betting favorite — 1-2 with Ladbrokes and 8-13 with William Hill.

Britain's most decorated Olympian, Redgrave won gold medals at five consecutive games from 1984 to 2000 and was knighted by the queen in 2001.

"It's hard to argue with Redgrave. He has been odds-on from day one," Ladbrokes spokeswoman Jessica Bridge said.

Though he's a household name in Britain, Redgrave may not resonate with an international audience. He's also a low-key personality.

"I don't think most Americans ever heard of him," Wallechinsky said.

Second favorite with the bookies is Holmes, winner of the 800 and 1,500 meters at the 2004 Athens Olympics. She's 7-1 with Ladbrokes and 5-1 with William Hill.

Teenage diver — and leading medal hope — Daley is also at 7-1 with Ladbrokes, followed by four-time cycling gold medalist Chris Hoy, former decathlon champion Thompson and Coe, who in addition to being a gold medal winner is now head of the London Olympic organizing committee. Beckham and the queen are at 25-1.

Thompson, who won the decathlon at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, is a colorful and sometimes irreverent figure. Coe gave him a plug last year, telling the Daily Telegraph: "I genuinely believe he is the greatest Olympian we have delivered."

Coe downplays his own chances.

"I've made it very clear I have massive duties around the times of the games," he told the AP on Thursday.

A strong case could be made for Bannister, the first man to break the 4-minute barrier for the mile. Bannister ran in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, finishing a disappointing fourth in the 1,500 meters. Two years later, he ran the magic time that still stands as one of the greatest sporting achievements of the 20th century. Bannister turns 83 in March.

"If there's some real icon in British sport, if it were Roger Bannister or someone like that, it could be spectacular," Pound said.

Some or all of the top contenders could be involved in the final legs of the torch relay.

There also could be a surprise flame-lighter: Perhaps a young athlete from one of the poor boroughs surrounding the Olympic Park, representing the hopes of a generation.

Hampton, the author, has a more glamorous choice — Kate Middleton, the new wife of Prince William.

"My prediction for the 2012 Games is that the final torch bearer will be the Duchess of Cambridge, wearing a slinky see-through lace frock," she said. "She is popular, beautiful and can presumably run once round a stadium with one arm in the air."

Associated Press Writers Danica Kirka in London and Pan Pylas in Davos, Switzerland, contributed to this report.